


Truth-Finder

by AMarguerite



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Persuasion - Jane Austen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, F/M, Napoleonic Wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28707660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMarguerite/pseuds/AMarguerite
Summary: For the first sentence meme "He had promised it would never happen again, but who could expect such a thing to happen twice?"The Elliots of Kellynch Hall also own the seventh alethiometer ever created-- a compass-like object that always tells the truth of whatever question you ask it. When Napoleon forms an alliance with the witches of the north and escapes from exile a second time, the Magisterium rushes to ask Sir Walter to use this truth-telling symbolic compass. There's only one problem: he doesn't know how to read it. Only Anne does.His Dark Materials/ Daemons AU. I just wanted everyone to have a cute animal buddy. Should make sense without knowing more about HDM.
Relationships: Anne Elliot/Frederick Wentworth
Comments: 78
Kudos: 254





	Truth-Finder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NotAHarpieButASinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotAHarpieButASinger/gifts).



> This is probably bad His Dark Materials lore, as it is based on my own understanding of the rules of the universe as grasped from the first season of the HBO miniseries and from what I picked up from @ellynneversweet‘s P&P fic with daemons. I am well aware that religious history was so different that there may have been no actual need for priestholes in this universe, but in all honesty this is just an excuse to give everyone a fun animal pal so don't take the history or Anne's ability to read an alethiometer correctly too seriously.

He had promised it would never happen again, but who could expect such a thing to happen twice? The representative of the Magisterium come to tell them of this shocking repetion of history was more anxious than Anne had ever seen him before. A glance at his daemon, a rabbit with a pinkly twitching nose, proved it to be entirely true; this was no act to rush Sir Walter, or impress on him the gravity of the situation. The white rabbit hardly even ventured near Anne’s capybara daemon, Penates, and Anne could not recall a time when an anxious daemon had  _ not  _ settled down quietly by Penates’s side within ten minutes. 

“That cannot be true,” said Sir Walter. 

“The former Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte has escaped a second time,” admitted the Magisterium man. 

“That Corsican upstart escaped from  _ Saint Helena _ ?” cried Sir Walter. “Impossible. What use is the Navy, aside from hideously aging every man it takes in?” 

“Careful, Sir Walter,” said the Magisterium man, glancing at the door. “The First Lords of the Admiralty are the ones who know; they provided my guard as well as the ship that took me down the canals.”

It had been a very wet winter with the roads very bad indeed. The canals were the fastest way from London to Kellynch, though hardly the most comfortable. 

“They are likewise the ones who failed in their duty,” said Sir Walter. “How on earth did this happen  _ again _ ?” 

“Bonaparte has made an alliance with the witches of the north,” said the Magisterium man. He now glanced at Anne. 

Sir Walter’s usual method of dismissing Magisterium concern about Anne’s presence at these meetings was to ignore it, which he did, magnificently. His daemon Celsus, even turned up her nose. Celsus was a raccoon, an exotic creature of the new world only glimpsed in prints and books, and always caused little stirs of admiration wherever she went.

(Though once, a young naval commander who had actually been to the former colonies had told Anne that over  _ there  _ raccoons were treated with no more respect or deference than stoats or squirrels— and indeed many considered them pests. Anne had never told this to her father, and felt occasionally guilty for how often she remembered this fact.)

“We need to know where he is now,” said the Magisterium man. “Sir Walter, please, it is of vital importance you ask the alethiometer, ‘Where is Napoleon now?’ With so simple a question, it must give you a simple answer. None of your other answers to our questions have ever been wrong— and those questions have been a great deal more complex.” 

“The alethiometer gives me a symbol after I put in three other symbols,” said Sir Walter. “The skill of an alethiometrist lies in his understanding and ability to interpret correctly— a very delicate matter. The simplicity of the question is of no consequence whatever. You, I am sure, would never understand it. You must be brought up knowing all the layers of interpretation. No one outside the family has ever succeeded in using  _ our  _ alethiometer correctly.” 

“Still, you must hurry. It is vital we have an answer as soon as possible.” 

“It is work that cannot be rushed. Anne, fetch all that is needful for the reading, and take this gentleman’s address. My daughter will deliver to you my reading once it is completed, and the probable interpretation.”

“Yes, sir,” said Anne.

“But you must make haste in this matter,” insisted the Magisterium man. “We are in hourly expectation of attack, Sir Walter. Everyone speaks of you as the best alethiometrist in England.”

Sir Walter did not look in the least bit conscious of this undeserved praise; indeed, Celsus stretched out in pleasure. 

“Perhaps if I remained here—”

“Out of the question,” said Sir Walter. 

“I promise I shall be very quiet— I shall sit in a corner of the room—”

“I cannot read to an audience!” thundered Sir Walter. “Do you have any idea what a delicate process it is, to adjust the hands on so small an object, to pick the right symbols out of the thirty-six to ask the right question? And then to decipher whatever the fourth hand points to, after it has finished a dizzying set of spins! That is the most delicate work of all! It cannot be done under observation. There have been libraries written on each single symbol! How am I to pick the correct meaning with  _ you  _ leaning grossly over my shoulder and fogging up the glass?” 

“Sir Walter,” said the Magisterium man, “I really must insist—”

“You must be  _ new _ ,” said Celsus, witheringly. 

“Insist!” Sir Walter could not hide his incredulity. “ _ You  _ insist! The Kellynch Alethiometer has been in the Elliot family since the first baronet purchased it from Pavel Khunrath himself! You dare to tell  _ an Elliot _ how it must be used? Out. Out! I shall not talk with you any longer. If you remain an instant longer on this property, I will not be able to read at all! It requires perfect quiet, perfect equanimity— and years of dedicated study and a breeding which you, sir, can never hope to acquire. Tell the Magisterium to send someone else tomorrow at the earliest.” 

Sir Walter rang and a couple of servants with their foxhound daemons happily chased the man out into the night. 

“To think a man so vile looking, with such watery eyes and sandy hair, and with no surname of dignity, would dictate to an  _ Elliot  _ how it is to be done!” Sir Walter shook his head. “Anne, even if you do find an answer quickly, I would not have you  _ rush  _ it to them.”

“That is highly unlikely, sir,” said Anne truthfully. She moved aside a painting and, after taking out a key which she wore on a chain around her neck, carefully removed the alethiometer from the safe. It always warmed to her hands when she withdrew it from her velvet case, but tonight she was too unsettled to let her mind form merely  _ one  _ question, instead of thousands on how to frame it. “I shall need to play for a half-hour, sir.”

“I do not doubt  _ that man  _ will be sulking around the house for at least half-an-hour,” opined Sir Walter. “Go to. I shall set the servants to patrolling the grounds.” 

Anne sat at the pianoforte and set the alethiometer in her lap, to let herself grow accustomed to its face and weight again. The scales and arpeggios were not enough to settle her; she reached for Mozart, found it wanting— Haydn, too well-known— ah. Her hand hovered over a Beethoven sonata she had not played in seven, or perhaps eight years. But the sheets felt right in her hands when she picked them up, and when she played her stiff fingers began to ease into the rapid sixteenth notes.

The old anxiety appeared when her fingers were busily engaged. What if this no longer worked? What if— what if—

Anne had been so good at reading the alethiometer before her daemon had settled. It had all come so naturally, more naturally than anyone else in the family— but then Lady Elliot had died, and Anne had been sent away to Bath and she had forgotten everything. The alethiometer had felt cold and lifeless in her hands when Anne had returned to the house haunted by Lady Elliot’s absence. Though she poured over the symbols, the more Anne studied and read and asked every visiting scholar for their opinions, the more she doubted her own feelings, her own understanding of what they meant or could mean. The first time the alethiometer had come alive again had been when she was nineteen, in the bliss of requited love that drove out all self-consciousness. She had returned from a local assembly still humming the cotillion she had danced with Captain Wentworth to see her father staring at the alethiometer, declaring to Lady Russell, “There is no sense in this! The King’s madness is… caused by madness? The fourth needle does not move!” 

Anne had come over and immediately known her father had set the hands incorrectly. The habit of years made her quietly correct it while her father was distracted with something else— but before she could drift out unnoticed, Lady Russell had gasped, “It moves! Anne, my dear girl, has it come back to you?”

It had, much to her sorrow— even though it had been her dearest wish for years. When Captain Wentworth asked for permission to marry her, he had been vehemently denied. Sir Walter could not spare the only member of the family who could make the fourth needle of the alethiometer move— though of course he had not said any of that aloud. Instead, Sir Walter declared he would not let the daughter of one of the oldest families in the baronetage throw herself away on a mere nobody with nothing but a name to recommend him, and not a very good name at that. 

Anne had been on the point of agreeing to an elopement when Lady Russell persuaded her out of it. The scandal of it! And there were, besides, more important things to consider. Anne was one of the only alethiometrists alive; certainly the only Elliot alethiometrist. If by rushing off so heedlessly to tie herself as a millstone around the neck of a man without fortune, family, or connections she caused him injury— injury she could have spared him if she had only used the alethiometer to assist with the war— could she forgive herself? Could she stand the shame of having married so precipitously, against the will of her father,  _ and  _ the guilt of knowing that if Captain Wentworth was ever injured or killed, she could have prevented it with the Elliot alethiometer? For surely she would live with the Captain, or go abroad with him, away from where the alethiometer was so zealously guarded at Kellynch. Sir Walter would never allow it off the grounds; nor the government; nor the Magisterium. She could marry and be cast out from the Elliot family, a burden to all; or she could remain with her father, remain an Elliot, remain of use to all. 

And so Anne had broken the engagement. It had occurred to Anne many times since then that Captain Wentowrth could have been trusted with the secret, could have been brought into the family— but Sir Walter had not agreed, and would never be brought to agree. It was useless to speculate now. 

The old story had been gone through— resolved, settled— unsatisfactorily, but settled. Anne looked at it as she might a gown she had hoped to wear but never had the chance to put on, and folded it up neatly and tucked it away out of sight. As Anne continued playing, she felt each extraneous question falling away, and each of the thirty-six symbols— ones she had learned to read almost before she had learned her letters— present themselves in her mind like that season’s debutantes before the Queen. 

By the time she reached the end, her mind formed the question, ‘Where is Napoleon now?’ and having weighed all the symbols against each other, began to turn the hands of the alethiometer. 

Commotion outside— no, she must not let it distract her. 

She gently drew her attention back to the alethiometer, let her mind relax into the four arms of it— 

Gunshots? The Magisterium man must be determined, and the gamekeeper firing at him to chase him off— 

Penates jumped up on the bench beside her with a quiet, “Where is Napoleon now?”

Anne stared into the face of the alethiometer. With Penates sitting quietly beside her, his eyes half-closed, she could relax back into the unthinking, slightly distant calm she felt when playing music. She did not care for one answer over another; nothing clouded her judgement. Where was Napoleon? 

The constituent parts of the question rose before her, flotsam on the sea of her consciousness. She carefully turned the three short hands to the proper symbols. The long needle quivered and began to spin—

Horrible bangs, louder than ever. The doors flew open— no!

Two of the footmen fell in, groaning horribly. Before she could even register why they had fallen in, a curly-haired man with a smoking pistol and the most elaborate uniform she had ever seen stepped over them and towards her. His daemon, a very pretty little fox, jumped over the fallen servants and laughingly snapped at the cowering dog daemons. 

“I take it you are the lady of the house,” said the man in French, as Penates quickly shifted to block the man’s view of the alethiometer in Anne’s lap. “I have no wish to injure a lady, but my Emperor was most insistent I find the Kellynch alethiometer. Where is it?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Anne, nervously pulling on her shawl. The folds further hid the alethiometer, but if she rose it would slip— she hunched down, defensively. “I do not— do you know English?”

Anne knew French very well but now was not the time to admit this. 

The man stuck the pistol back in his sash and scratched his chin. He had evidently not thought of this complication before facing it. “Alethiometer?”

That required no translation, but Anne said, in the worst French she could manage, “I… to know? To understand? No.”

“Would she even know what that symbol-reader is, Michel?” asked the vixen, likewise in French. “Is it the same word?”

“Hell if I know,” replied the man. He pointed at his chest. “Marshal Ney.” He pointed at her. “Madame Elliot?”

“No,” said Anne, trying to think of another name, any name. “Madame— Madame Wentworth.” Oh Lord. Penates looked back at her at that. It wasn’t her fault, she had just been thinking of  _ him _ , as she  _ always  _ did before reading the alethiometer—

“Sir Walter Elliot?” Marshal Ney asked. 

This Anne did not know. She pointed out the window, to where she was sure her father was not. 

“No,” said Marshal Ney, patiently. “Sorceress— witch. Yes. Sir Walter, no.” He looked around the library, as if in inspiration, and noticed the open velvet box. He pointed to it. “Alethiometer!”

“That is empty,” said Anne slowly, unable to think of anything else. She risked taking her eyes off of the man to see one of the footmen still groaning horribly in the doorway, with his little terrier daemon whimpering and licking his face desperately trying to keep him awake— but the other had dragged himself away, thank God— quite unnoticed by anyone. Anne fervently hoped he would be able to escape, and not run into the witches apparently patrolling the grounds. 

“Name of God, does she think saying it slower will help?” muttered Marshal Ney in French to his daemon. “What a man! He takes the alethiometer and runs, leaving his guests without warning them! The English are a vile, self-centered people.”

“Obviously,” said the vixen, twitching her tail in amusement. “I feel almost sorry for Madame Wentworth— although…” The vixen cocked her head to the side. “Why  _ was  _ she alone in the study with two footmen guarding the door?”

Marshal Ney put the box under his arm. “Why do you think? She— ah. Sir Walter must have warned everyone after all. I have seen no other guests, which means….” He looked from the box to Anne with a crack of laughter. “Do you think she is sitting on it, or do you think she put it down her gown?”

Anne shrank back in horror, pulling Penates into her lap. Marshal Ney still seemed amused as he strode over to her, saying, “Give, Madame Wentworth, give!” but Anne did not know how to fight— or how to preserve the alethiometer. Penates could not fit it in his mouth and it was too late to try and hide it in the pianoforte, or drop it on the ground and kick it away—

—and everything was suddenly hideous noise and confusion. She tore her terrified gaze away from Marshal Ney to the the window, where young women ran about the grounds like bats, driving back footmen and sailors glimpsed dimly in the gloom, and there were more shots again, closer—

And a horrible report of gunfire right beside her! Anne clutched Penates and made herself small, thinking, wildly, that she had really thought Marshal Ney would not kill her before searching her, but it did seem more efficient to kill her first—

French curses, and a clang of steel—

Anne looked up. Marshal Ney was fighting someone in a British naval uniform, and the vixen was snarling at an otter scampering about her feet and nipping at her paws—

It couldn’t be. “Penates, is that—”

“There are many otter daemons in the Navy,” said Penates, shaken. “Anne, we must run now, while they are distracted.” 

Anne knotted the alethiometer in her shawl with fingers that trembled and slid out of the room through the servants’ entrance. She did not know this part of Kellynch very well and the dim, but constant noises of battle confused her yet further. 

“The grounds?” Anne asked Penates.

Penates shook his head. “Your father will be in the priesthole.” 

Anne did not know entirely how to get there through the servants' corridors, but at the very least, no one had thought to look for Sir Walter or the alethiometer in this part of the house. The priesthole was just off the laundry, which seemed a little dangerous, but she must find her father and get him and the alethiometer away from Kellynch as soon as possible—

And yet— he was not in it. Even Elizabeth was absent. Anne stood, feeling rather stupid and shaken, right in the doorframe of the laundry, one hand still on the door that never could hang right because the oddly wide right side panel in the doorframe could be removed to get into the priesthole. There was not much in the room— or closet rather. There was a built-in bench that could be used as a very uncomfortable bed, some small, empty alcoves in the wall opposite meant to store food, and a lantern hanging at the back. Everything was so dusty, it was evident no one had touched the room since Anne had put new candles in the alcove last year. 

“They will come to the priesthole,” said Penates comfortingly. “We had best wait for them here.”

Anne had no other plan, and she trusted in her family’s sense of self-preservation, if nothing else. She slid in, and carefully lit the lantern before putting the panel back up again. 

Wanting something to do instead of fret, Anne unknotted the alethiometer and removed her notebook and pencil from her pocket. The alethiometer had pointed to an answer, but she could not make sense of it. She sat on the floor, using the bench as a sort of table, and tried to lose herself in writing down the possible interpretations, but she started at every noise. 

“You shouldn’t try,” said Penates, facing the door. “You know you are not calm enough.”

“I think the answer is of more vital importance than any of us realized,” said Anne. She left her pencil and notebook by the lantern and, putting her back against the wall, took up the alethiometer again. “I can only tell that he is not  _ here _ , but there are so many ways to interpret this—he is in the north? Or he is in the air? Or he is elsewhere?”

Penates trotted over and into her lap. “You had better try calming yourself before you do anything else.”

Anne had spent many years practicing fortitude in the midst of intense suffering and low spirits, but never in a situation of such action or such danger. It had been so much easier to sink into the calm required to read the alethiometer when her life was spent guarding against lowness and loneliness. Then it was like reaching out to a friend. 

It is still like that, in a way, thought Anne, and was briefly mortified at having called herself Madame Wentworth, and having imagined  _ him  _ there when she was in most need of a friend, a true friend—

Penates put his little webbed feet on Anne’s shoulders and his long, reddish brown head against Anne’s. “Peace, Anne. There is only us.” 

Anne counted her breaths, until only the numbers existed— and then only her breathing. Penates settled in her lap and she rested the alethiometer on top of him, which was the easiest— though most taxing— way of settling into the state of mind required to truly read the alethiometer. All she had to do was breathe. A great weariness overtook her, and drew her, like an undertow, towards greater calm. She was so tired, her mind molded herself to her question, ‘Who will come to me, here?’ with a strange distance— as if she were asking about someone else, or did not particularly care about the answer. The first symbol rose to her mind’s eye; almost without thinking, she moved the hand. Then the next suggested it to herself, then the next.

As she moved the needle to the last symbol, the panel shifted a little, and a man said through it, quietly, “Anne? Are you in there? The house is under English control; the French have been driven off.”

Anne took little notice of the voice, and let his words wash over her without leaving her with anything more than a vague sense of safety. The alethiometer held all her attention. 

The fourth, longest needle quivered and began to spin, almost as if in confusion—

The panel shifted.

The noise startled her but instinct told her that the French could not have known her name. It must be her family, or a trusted servant. She had been right before. She was safe. Anne drew her attention gently back to the spinning hand—

— which stopped as a shadow fell across her. 

“Friend,” murmured Anne to Penates. “That must be what it means, though— no, it cannot be—” 

An otter daemon scampered up onto the bench, and sat on its haunches to look down at her notebook in bright curiosity.

Anne did not know what to say, and did not think to hide the alethiometer. It was too late, really— she should have hidden it as soon as the panel opened. Whoever had come in could not have failed to see her reading the alethiometer or trying to interpret it. 

She forced herself to look away from the otter reading her notebook and up to who she knew it must be, to the only person it could be—

“Captain Wentworth,” said Anne, numbly. 

The years had been very kind to him. Even though she was now sure he had attacked Marshal Ney earlier— she was no longer how long ago that had been; she often spent hours sinking into calm without noticing the passage of time— he seemed entirely uninjured, and full of vigor and energy. The bright eye was undimmed; his person only grown stronger and more handsome in the years since they had last seen each other. 

“Miss Elliot,” said he, with knitted brow. “I… take it that you are holding the Kellynch alethiometer.”

“Yes,” said Anne. What else was there to say? 

Penates said, “We have kept it safe.”

“Pray, have you seen my father?” Anne asked. “I have not since— I do not know exactly when the French attacked, or what happened.”

Since Anne had made no move to stand, Captain Wentworth sat on the bench. He glanced at the notebook and picked it up seemingly out of absence of mind, as his daemon Fidere flipped through the pages. “The First Lords found out, shortly after they had sent the Magestirum representative down the canals, that they had been overheard— that there was a spy in their midst. I happened to be loitering about Whitehall for something to do and was sent with some men. We could not stop the representative from leading the Bonapartists hidden among his first crew straight to your father, but we arrived in time to help you at least.”

Anne looked up wide-eyed. “He is— they have—”

“Kidnapped him, merely,” said Captain Wentworth, unthinkingly reaching out a hand and then awkwardly withdrawing it. Fidere curled in on herself rather sulkily. “I daresay they think they can find or make another alethiometer they can make him interpret— and they can make him do this because they also have your elder sister.”

“I daresay it won’t do them any good,” said Fidere. “Frederick, look how far back that notebook goes.”

He did. The content of it seemed to surprise him considerably. “Forgive the speculation, Miss Elliot, but I take it  _ you  _ are the alethiometrist in your family. Not your father.”

Anne bowed her head over the alethiometer. 

“Could he ever read the alethiometer?” asked Fidere, rather snidely.

Penates shifted in her lap with a resigned, “No, it was Lady Elliot before it was Anne.” 

“However inadvertent, the advantage is still ours, it seems,” said Captain Wentworth. He handed Anne the notebook. She slowly took it and tied it and the alethiometer tightly into her shawl. 

“I suppose,” said Anne presently, “you are wondering why I—”

“No,” said Captain Wentworth. "I have no wonder or any curiosity about _that_ , Miss Elliot." 

Anne drew back. She had expected that, but it still pained her. 

Penates said, gently, “We could not go against Sir Walter. Not over something this important.”

“I think you certainly could have when you were the only one who could read that gold compass,” said Fidere, sliding smoothly from the bench to the floor. “You held all the cards, and folded.”

“What cards did I hold?” asked Anne, desperately. “My father forbid me to—” She remembered in time what they were actually speaking of “—to tell anyone that I was the alethiometrist, not him. I could not go against him, not when so many depended on me doing my duty. It was my duty.”

Fidere turned contemptuously away and walked to the door. 

The silence was horrible. Anne rushed to fill it with politeness. “I— I am very grateful for all your assistance, Captain Wentworth. Especially in the library. If you hadn’t come in when you did, Marshal Ney would have taken the alethiometer. I had only time to hide it in my shawl before he came in. Thank you.” 

“It was my duty,” said Captain Wentworth, with bitter irony. “Come, Miss Elliot, let’s get you and the alethiometer to safety.”

He did not offer her his arm, but Anne was clutching the bundled up alethiometer to her chest and would not have let go. She wincingly unfolded herself and staggered upright on legs still half-asleep, but thought to herself— how had he remembered? How had he found her?

None of the servants knew of the priesthole, or they would have cleaned it. 

She had shown him the priesthole years and years ago, when they were playing sardines as an excuse to kiss unobserved— had he still remembered?

Captain Wentworth glanced over his shoulder at her, sighed, and offered his arm. 

Anne took it, mind on her final reading.

_ Friend _ .

She glanced up at him sideways and hoped she had not wrongly interpreted after all. 


End file.
